Jean Dubuffet & Larry Poons MATERIAL TOPOGRAPHIES
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Jean Dubuffet & Larry Poons MATERIAL TOPOGRAPHIES
January 12 – February 18, 2017
521 WEST 26 ST NYC 10001 212.695.0164 LORETTAHOWARD.COM
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Jean Dubuffet in his New York studio, 1952. Photo by Kai Bell, courtesy Archives of American Art.
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Larry Poons in his studio. Photo by Stu Lisson.
Jean Dubuffet & Larry Poons MATERIAL TOPOGRAPHIES Jean Dubuffet & Larry Poons: Material Topographies explores the radical experimentation of both artists as they began to utilize unorthodox materials and reject traditional concepts of pictorial space in search of a direct, physical language. Though separated by more than a generation, their canvases share a rough urgency and a mistrust of unnecessary flourishes. Both artists stand as iconoclasts in the history of painting and cut their teeth as countercultural figures; Dubuffet in his Parisian avant-garde and Poons in the rough and tumble downtown scene of New York in the 1960s. In 1951 after outlining his famous “Anti Cultural Positions” at the Chicago Art Club, Dubuffet became well known for decrying western conceptions of beauty in favor of a raw, uninhibited mode of making art. While Poons’s conflict appears to be one of philosophical dimensions, wrought between him and the canvas, they have been described as “battle felds” by art critic Dave Hickey. Like Dubuffet, he has been praised for his ability to pay attention to instinct. Frank Stella once admiringly referred to him as “Mr. Natural.”
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Dubuffet’s paintings employ dense sheets of oil paint that behave like a “mortar” in which the artist binds layers of dirt, sand, gravel, plaster, glass, string, hay, cement, and tar. The resulting surfaces invoke the facades of desiccated, cracking roadways and ancient walls that were known to fascinate the artist. Eschewing the traditional brush, he gouged sliced, carved and wiped marks directly onto the canvas. Beginning in the late 1970s Larry Poons imbued the surfaces of his heavily wrought acrylic paintings with “pebbles” of thick latex foam. In the following years he assembled these surfaces with an increasingly dense armature of synthetic rubble until they began to heave with architectonic force. The unconventional materials in these works often include rubber, plastic, paper, tennis balls, and rope. Viewed together, the paintings of Larry Poons and Jean Dubuffet offer a unique context in which to appreciate both the chaotic nature of radical action and the sense of openness and opportunity that can emerge as a result. These are ambitious, restless works that bypass symbolic meaning and plunge one directly into the realm of lived experience. The process of looking is thus consumed by a physical immediacy and bodily sensation akin to staring headlong into the full force of nature. n With special thanks to Robert Mattison for his inspiration
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left: LARRY POONS Cry Le June, 1990 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 72 3/4 x 78 1/4 inches inches
above: JEAN DUBUFFET Soleil san Vertu, 1952 Oil on masonite 36 x 32 x 2 1/2 inches
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JEAN DUBUFFET La galante poursuite [The Gallant Pursuit], January 5 -18, 1953 Oil on masonite 38 x 51 inches
LARRY POONS To Speak, 1987 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 49 3/4 x 72 1/4 inches
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LARRY POONS Touch, 1986 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 65 1/2 x 30 1/2 inches
JEAN DUBUFFET Tapis Tabac, August 1959 Tobacco leaf collage 17 1/4 x 20 inches
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LARRY POONS The Race to Catch up with Bad Taste, 1989 Acrylic on canvas 16 x 26 inches
JEAN DUBUFFET Jeux et travaux, 1953 Lithograph, printed in color on Arches paper 25 3/4 x 19 3/4 inches
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LARRY POONS 31st Floor A Gold Plated Door, 1993 Acrylic and mixed media on canvas 51 3/4 x 90 3/4 inches
This catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition
Jean Dubuffet & Larry Poons MATERIAL TOPOGRAPHIES
January 12 – February 18 2017 Loretta Howard Gallery 525 West 26th Street New York NY 10001 212.695.0164 www.lorettahoward.com Larry Poons photography by John Small. Jean Dubuffet works copyright 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Design: HHA design
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